THE Zamboanga City Health Office has coordinated with pediatricians in private practice to determine whether they have injected their patients with the Dengvaxia vaccines.
City Health Officer RodelinAgbulos said some of the pediatricians may have possibly used Dengvaxia even though there was no anti-dengue vaccination that was conducted in Zamboanga City.
Agbulos said the coordination is to enable them to trace the whereabouts of the children if and when they were vaccinated with Dengvaxia.
He added that children injected with Dengvaxia, if there is any, will be closely monitored.
Dengvaxia, manufactured by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur, has been granted marketing authorization in 2015 by Mexico, making it the first vaccine to be licensed in the world for the prevention of dengue.
However, it was reported that the vaccine has dangerous side effects to those who have not been previously infected by dengue, prompting the Department of Health (DOH) to suspend the vaccination program.
The DOH reported that 733,713 children from three regions in Luzon have so far been vaccinated through the government's school-based immunization program launched in 2016. (SunStar Philippines)